Outbreak! is a free, online summer program offered by the Public Health Museum of Massachusetts to teach high-school students (Grades 10-12) about public health and related fields such as epidemiology, ethics, disease surveillance, nursing, and emergency preparedness. This year it will be held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9AM-1PM, August 2-13. Register by June 30. For more information, email outbreak@publichealthmuseum.org.

PluggedIn, based in Needham, is a unique, inclusive, nonprofit youth music program. This summer it’s offering a program in Digital Music Production & Technology for ages 6-19. PluggedIn is open to all students, regardless of ability to pay, ability to play, special needs, etc. Each week the program runs 10AM-Noon on Monday-Thursday and 10AM-2PM on Friday. Sign up for any or all of four weeks:

• Intro to Digital Audio Production:  June 28-July 2
• Intermediate Digital Audio Production:  July 6-9 
• Creating Virtual Instruments in Pure Data:  July 12-16
• Programming Audio Plugins:  July 19-23

Also, June 28-August 20, PluggedIn will offer Peace Tracks, a cross-cultural, digital music and video project for students in ages 14-18 in Massachusetts and Morocco to collaborate online in making a music video. It’s open to all skill levels. Register here for this and other programs, in-person and online.

Students entering Grades 7-12 (plus those who just graduated) are invited to register for MIT’s Summer HSSP, which will run virtually on six Saturdays, 1PM-5PM, July 10 – August 14. Students can take 3-week classes or 6-week classes, or both. Register by June 25 with your preferences for classes to be entered in the lottery for class assignment. The total cost is $40, regardless of the number of classes taken, and generous need-based financial aid is available. The fee is paid after the lottery results are announced, during the period in which remaining seats may be reserved on a first-come/first-served basis. For more information, email summer-hssp@mit.edu. HSSP is run by MIT students, this year Zooming from far and wide to offer 41 courses (plus more to be added later), including these STEM-related ones:

• Fun with Algorithms!
• Programming Robot Arms to Move Objects
• Introduction to Programming with R
• Intro to Programming in Python
• Sharing Secrets: An Introduction to Cryptography
• Intro to Graph Theory
• Type Theory and Formal Verification
• Functions and Graphs made Easy
• Demographic Dynamics in Human Populations
• Women’s Health
• Environmental Pollution
• Nuclear Fusion: Infinite, Clean Energy?
• Human Identification through DNA Typing
• Intro to Electronics
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Black Holes!
• Great and Small: Crazy Electrons
• Introduction to Epidemiology
• The Science of Happiness
• How the Brain Learns: Cognitive Study Skills
• Intro to Microbial Genomics
• Why Things Freeze/Boil (Spoiler: Gravity, Mostly)
• How Neurons Talk
• The (Not So) Many Faces of Biotech
• STEM Lecture Series

Boston Tech Mom has a new post, STEM Events for Kids, Summer 2021, that’s a terrific catalogue of at-home activities, online resources, and several camps, classes, and events — mostly virtual but some in-person.

UMass Lowell Center for Internet Security and Forensics Education and Research will offer the free, online GenCyber High School Student Virtual Summer Camp on Cybersecurity, July 12-23, 9AM-Noon daily to up to 80 students in Grades 9-12. No prior experience in programming or cybersecurity is required. Applications are considered on a rolling basis. For more information, email gencyberuml@gmail.com.

Tufts University’s Pre-College Programs will offer the following virtual STEM courses this summer for high-school students:

• Engineering Design Lab: July 25-August 6
• Food for the Future: July 25-August 6
• Climate Resilience Institute: July 25-August 6
• Coding 101: July 11-23
• Engineering Investigations: July 11-23
• Mini-Med School (full): July 12-24
• Tufts Summer Research Experience: July 5-August 13

Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Pre-Collegiate Outreach program is offering these summer programs virtually:

Launch: For students entering Grades 9-10. June 27- July 2 and August 8-13. Monday-Friday, either 9AM-noon or 1PM-4PM, with time split evenly between instruction and self-guided project work. Register here. Courses include:

• Architectural Design
• Biology: Changing the Living World
• Computational Biology: Simulating Virus Spread
• Computer Science: Innovative Applications
• Crime Scene Chemistry
• Cybersecurity: World-Wide Phenomena
• Data Science
• Digital Imaging and Computer Arts
• Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Explore the World with MATLAB
• Interactive Media & Game Development
• Physics
• Programming with Python: For Beginners
• Robotics Engineering
• Video Game Design

Frontiers: For students entering Grades 11-12.  July 11-23 and/or July 25-August 6. Register here. Courses include:

Session I:
Major Courses

• Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering
• Computer Modeling: Exploration of Engineering Software
• Computer Science: Possibilities in Programming
• Mathematics: Applications in the Real-World
• Physics: Journey into Modern Physics

Minor Courses

• Digital Imaging & Computer Arts

Session II:
Major Courses

• Critical Insights from Learning Science
• Cybersecurity:World-Wide Phenomena
• Data Science: Extracting Knowledge & Insights
• Electrical & Computer Engineering
• Engineering Exploration
• Materials Science & Engineering
• Neuroscience: Unpacking the Mysteries of the Brain
• Psychology: Villains, Heroes & COVID
• Robotics Engineering

Minor Courses

• Ethics of Robots and Artificial Intelligence
• Financial Literacy
• Hip-hop and You Don’t Stop
• Introduction to Electronic Composition

Both Sessions I and II:
Major Courses

• Biomedical Engineering: Impacts on Global Health
• Interactive Media & Game Development

Minor Courses

• Business: Dream of Being Your Own Boss?
• Elements of Writing: The Application Essay
• Legal Storytelling: Race, Gender, and the Law
• Me, Myself and Music: Discovering the Connection
• Psychology
• Science of Art
• STEM Teaching Workshop